MOSCOW, August 20. /ITAR-TASS/. The suborbital flight path of the European Intermediate experimental Vehicle (IXV) that is planned to be launched in early November, will not cross Russia, head of the Moscow Office of the European Space Agency (ESA) Rene Pischel said on Wednesday.

“The suborbital trajectory inclination will be just two degrees, so the IXV, which will be launched by the Vega carrier rocket from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana towards the Pacific, cannot fly above Russia,” he said.

The ESA planned to launch the IXV to flight test the technologies and critical systems for Europe’s future automated re-entry vehicles returning from low orbit, according to previous reports.

According to the project presentation on the ESA website, a considerable part of the IXV suborbital flight trajectory to the designated Pacific area would allegedly stretch over Russia’s north-eastern regions. The IXV craft will attain an altitude of around 450 km, allowing it to reach a speed of 7.5 km/s when re-entering the atmosphere at an altitude of 120 km - fully representative of any return mission from low orbit, according to ESA.

The spacecraft’s re-entry will begin during its flight east of the Kuril Islands, ESA said. The IXV splashdown is expected in the central part of the Pacific where it will be awaited by a special vessel. At the final stage of the flight, the IXV will be followed by a tracking station in the Kiribati island state and by a satellite.